Scribal Errors in the Qur’an?
Much has been said recently about the variant Qira’at (readings) that are regarded by classical Islamic scholars to be part of the divine canon. They have become a contentious issue. Do they actually add anything of real value to the text as Muslim scholars claim? Or are they simply a source of controversy and confusion?
To the non-Muslim, there is a far more straightforward explanation. Rather than being divinely inspired variants, they are simply the natural result of the imperfect nature of oral transmission and scribal errors.
The following example, in my opinion, is a case of where the standard reading is actually a scribal error that found its way into the canon, while a rare variant reading is the grammatically correct one.
Verse 69 of Surah al-Ma’idah reads:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ وَالَّذِينَ هَادُواْ وَالصَّابِؤُونَ وَالنَّصَارَى مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
“Indeed, those who have believed [in Prophet Muhammad] and those [before Him] who were Jews or Sabians or Christians — those [among them] who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness — no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve.”
The issue is with the word “Sabians” الصَّابِؤُونَ . The problem is its ‘grammatical case-ending’. It is written الصَّابِؤُونَ which is the nominative case (الرفع) when one would expect it to be in the accusative case (النصب) and so should be written الصَّابِئِينَ and not الصَّابِؤُونَ . That is because the word is governed by إِنَّ and that particle (due to the rule of إن وأخواتها ) makes its subject accusative.
For example one says:
إِنَّ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَالْمُؤْمِنِينَ
Not:
إِنَّ الْمُسْلِمُونَ وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ
This is emphasised by two almost identical verses where the word (Sabians) appears twice, governed by the particle إِنَّ and so is correctly declined in the accusative الصَّابِئِينَ The verses are: (2:62) & (22:17).
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ وَالَّذِينَ هَادُواْ وَالنَّصَارَى وَالصَّابِئِينَ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلَهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَلاَ خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلاَ هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
“Indeed, those who believed and those who were Jews or Christians or Sabians [before Prophet Muhammad] — those [among them] who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness — will have their reward with their Lord, and no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve.” (2:62)
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالصَّابِئِينَ وَالنَّصَارَى وَالْمَجُوسَ وَالَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَفْصِلُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
“Indeed, those who have believed and those who were Jews and the Sabians and the Christians and the Magians and those who associated with Allah — Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection. Indeed Allah is, over all things, Witness.” (22:17)
In these two verses the word “Sabians” is governed by إِنَّ and so are correctly declined in the accusative as one would expect.
Of course grammarians and mufassirun immediately picked up on this anomaly — just as they have done for other anomalies — and did their best to explain it away in various ways, although revealingly they don’t agree on the explanation.
Possibly the most popular is that put forward by the great 12th century grammarian and mufassir, al-Zamakhshari. He says that in this particular verse one must split the sentence so that the first part is following the rule of being governed by إِنَّ but the word: وَالصَّابِؤُونَ must be considered to be starting a new sentence not governed by إِنَّ so it can be in the nominative. In other words, it must be understood in this way:
“Indeed those who believe, & are Jews & Christians, any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, & work righteousness on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. (NEW SENTENCE) And the Sabians likewise.”
However it is an unconvincing explanation to say the least. Why should this sentence be split in this way but the other two verses with almost identical sentences, should not?
What possible reason or benefit is there for manipulating the sentence like this?
It is clearly a contrived explanation motivated by the need to preserve the belief that there are no errors in the Qur’an, rather than any genuine linguistic or stylistic imperative.
Interestingly — after making long-winded apologetics for this anomaly — many tafseers then go on to mention that in the Qiraa’a of Ubayy, regarding this verse (5:69) he read it as «والصابئين» in the accusative. ie correctly declined.
In other words, after justifying this anomaly they present a variant reading that completely contradicts the explanations given to justify the anomaly and instead complies with how one would expect the word to read.
Of course there is a far more straightforward explanation that makes these mental gymnastics completely unnecessary — somewhere along the line a scribe made a mistake!!
PS. I was notified that Marijn van Putten also mentioned this. You can see his comments here.
